


all these things that i've done

by Eclaire-de-Lune (RoyalHeather)



Series: sable and sloe [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Post-Civil War (Marvel)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-23
Updated: 2016-06-23
Packaged: 2018-07-16 21:56:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7286161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoyalHeather/pseuds/Eclaire-de-Lune
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Barnes on the hospital bed, dressed in white, an IV in his arm, coming slowly out of cryo in a sedated, non-traumatic way, looks like a dead person. That is, he looks like what dead people in movies look like, and not a real-life corpse. “Does Rogers know you are here?” says T’Challa.</p><p>“Of course,” snorts Natasha, and then adds, gentler, “He’s had enough people going behind his back, me included. Didn’t want to add another thing to the list.”</p><p>--</p><p>After the events of Civil War, Natasha finds herself in Wakanda. less of an organized fic and more of a series of vignettes, heavy on sensation, only the barest semblance of plot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	all these things that i've done

**Longing**

T’Challa is waiting for her when she steps off the quinjet, tall and elegant in a tailored black suit. “Hey,” says Natasha, approaching him cautiously. Last time they spoke she sent 60,000 volts coursing through his body. “Wasn’t expecting the royal welcome.”

 “I thought I should be here to greet you in person,” he says, holding out his hand. “As a courtesy.”

Natasha takes his hand, expecting him to shake it, but he brings it up to his lips instead, just barely brushing a kiss over it. “Courtesy’s not really my thing,” is the only thing she can think to say, and isn’t _that_ a stunningly witty comeback.

T’Challa’s lips quirk in a slight smile. “Then I will have to supply it for both of us.”

 

**Rusted**

Barnes on the hospital bed, dressed in white, an IV in his arm, coming slowly out of cryo in a sedated, non-traumatic way, looks like a dead person. That is, he looks like what dead people in movies look like, and not a real-life corpse. “Does Rogers know you are here?” says T’Challa.

“Of course,” snorts Natasha, and then adds, gentler, “He’s had enough people going behind his back, me included. Didn’t want to add another thing to the list.”

“Hm.” T’Challa is standing behind and to the right of Natasha’s chair, hands behind his back. “Where is he now? When he was here he said he was going to rescue the rest of his team.”

“He did,” says Natasha. “Broke them all out of supermax. Last I heard they’re fighting crime in the Philippines.”

T’Challa sniffs. “I hope for the Philippine’s sake they have changed their M.O.”

Natasha shrugs. Sometimes you have to crack a few heads to make an omelet. “I think they have,” she says. “Steve and Wanda are both real torn up about everything. And you know Sam – well, no, you don’t actually – but he’s a war vet, he’s not gonna kill unless he has too.”

“Sam?” says T’Challa, brow furrowing.

“Birdman.”

“Ah yes. The one who doesn’t like cats.”

Natasha looks up at him, and he’s looking back down at her with a tiny smirk on his face.  “I know,” he says. “The costume is a bit much, isn’t it.”

“I mean. We’ve got a kid running around in a red and blue spandex outfit with a spider on it.”

On the bed, Barnes stirs, face twitching, and she watches him intently to see if he’s waking up. But a moment later he slips back into unconsciousness, accompanied by the steady beep of the heart monitor. “For the record, I like your costume,” she says.

She’s not sure why she said it, but she’s very glad she did, because for a brief second T’Challa loses his collected superiority for a look of pleased surprise. “You do?”

“Yeah. It’s intimidating.”

“It was designed to be so.”

 

Barnes’ eyes blink open. He focuses on her, frowns. “Why am I awake.”

She smiles down at him, carefully pleasant and neutral. “Well, it’s kind of hard to do therapy while you’re frozen.”

His frown intensifies, pouty lips pressing together. “Therapy?”

“Mm-hm.”

His hand is clenched on the bedsheets so tightly the knuckles are ivory. “I said – I told Steve – not to wake me up, I’m too dangerous, I can’t – I can’t control –”

“Well, I’m here to make you not-dangerous.”

His eyes meet hers, startlingly blue, and Natasha can read tension all through his chest and shoulders. “I know you,” he says.

“Yeah, I’m Steve’s friend, Natasha, you shot me in DC –”

He shakes his head no, the movement barely more than an irritable twitch. “Before.”

Natasha looks down at Barnes, considering, wondering how much of the Winter Soldier is still in there. “Odessa, 2009,” she says eventually. “You shot Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan through me.”

His eyes are too large in a gaunt face, focused, haunting. “Mission target: Ahmadi-Roshan, Mostafa,” he says. “Mission objective: assassination. Mission status: success, confirmed fatality. One additional casualty.”

“Yeah,” says Natasha, pulling up her shirt to show the scar on her abdomen. “That was me.”

Barnes’ gaze flicks down and back up again. He still hasn’t released his grip on the bedsheets; tendons bulge in his forearm. “You should put me back under.”

She smiles, shakes her head, leans back in her chair. “No.”

“ _Yes,_ ” he growls.

“You think you’re dangerous, don’t you.”

“I know I am.”

There’s a reason Natasha told Steve he didn’t need to be here. She can see it now, Steve fussing, taking Barnes’ hand, saying, “No, Buck, you’re not, that wasn’t you, that wasn’t your fault…”

“You are,” agrees Natasha. “Guess what? So am I.”

Barnes glares at her, and oddly enough this is the first expression he’s had so far that looks human and not supersoldier. It’s that touch of exasperation. “Why am I awake?” he says. “ _Really._ ”

“Like I said. Therapy.”

 

**Seventeen**

When she gets back to her suite, there’s a vase of flowers on the front table that wasn’t there before, white orchids and glossy green leaves. The attached note is heavy cream-colored paper, and written on it, in precise, confident script, is _Ms. Romanova. It would be my pleasure if you joined me for dinner tomorrow. 7 pm. Meet me on the helipad._ Signed, _T’Challa._

Well, thinks Natasha, placing the card back on the table, at least the wine will be expensive.

 

It’s _very_ expensive.

So is the restaurant.

At least, Natasha assumes so. It’s a small place in central Birnin Zana, no sign outside the door, and the décor inside is brick walls and velvet curtains, dim lighting from the hand-blown lamps. She and T’Challa are the only diners there, and when the maître d’ hands them menus, there are no prices printed next to the dish names.

“I wanted to offer an apology,” says T’Challa. “For blindly pursuing Barnes when he was innocent. I know he and Rogers are your friends.”

“Barnes isn’t my friend.”

T’Challa frowns at her from over his menu. “But you’re here for him.”

Natasha, having decided on _pétoncles au citron avec risotto au safran_ , sets her menu down. The lamplight casts a warm glow on T’Challa’s hair, his dark eyes, his broad shoulders. “I’m here because I can help him,” she says. “And for Steve.”

“Did Rogers send you?”

Natasha immediately stiffens. “Steve had nothing to do with this,” she says, terse. “I made my own decision to come here –”

“Of course,” says T’Challa immediately, holding up a hand. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to imply otherwise.”

“You didn’t just imply it, you _said_ it.”

The tense silence is broken by the maître d’ gliding over. “Are you ready to order?”

“Ah, yes,” says T’Challa, handing the menu back and looking up at the maître d’. Natasha glances appreciatively at T’Challa’s profile. “I’ll have the marlin.”

Natasha orders as well. “Thank you,” she says to the maître d’, smiling, flawlessly polite, as he collects her menu. He bows slightly, and disappears back into the shadows. “I react very strongly to the idea that other people are responsible for my actions,” continues Natasha, crossing her one leg over the other. “Given my past, I’m sure you can understand why.”

T’Challa takes a sip of wine. “I actually don’t know much about your history before SHIELD, believe it or not.”

“Well, it’s all there on the internet now, you can read it for yourself.”

“Oh, I know.” He sets the glass down. “But I prefer only to know what you want to tell me.”

That genuinely surprises her, actually, and she defers having to respond by sipping her own wine. It tastes _extremely_ expensive. “Well,” she says.

T’Challa smiles a little; she knows this smile now, a slight tug of the lips that indicates he’s feeling both pleased and confident in himself. “I imagine that isn’t an attitude you encounter regularly.”

“Not very often, no.”

By the time dessert (passionfruit crème brulee) arrives, Natasha is halfway through her third glass of wine and feeling a little less formal herself. “I’m curious,” she says. “Do you always get your way because you’re the king, or is it just because you’re rich and pretty?”

T’Challa frowns at her from across the table. “Most people aren’t so flippant with me.”

Natasha smirks and raises an eyebrow. “I’m not most people, am I?”

“No.” T’Challa leans back in his chair with a faint smile. “No, you are not.”

 

Later, in the state car, on their way back to T’Challa’s hoverjet, he casually puts his hand on her knee. Natasha looks down at it, deciding whether she wants his hand there or not. It can stay, she determines. He can keep his fingers.

She’s looking out the window at the nighttime city gliding by, and T’Challa’s looking ahead, but in the reflection she can see the corner of his mouth pull up again.

 

At the facility, they stop in front of her suite. “Are you going to invite me in?” T’Challa asks.

“No,” says Natasha. “After all, I’m going to be here a while, looking after Barnes. I don’t want to get ahead of myself.”

There’s a knowing light in his eyes. “I see,” he says.

Stepping closer to him, Natasha leans up and kisses him on the cheek. Even with the stilettos she’s wearing, she still has to stretch a bit to reach. T’Challa’s hand slides around her waist, and when she meets his gaze there’s a new intensity in his expression. “Thanks for dinner,” she says.

His hand is still on her waist; she likes it there, just the right amount of pressure. “Of course,” T’Challa responds. “My pleasure.”

 

**Daybreak**

Barnes is dressed in a white tank top and black sweatpants, hair pulled back in a tufty ponytail, staring morosely out at the fog drifting over treetops. “Why you?” he asks Natasha. “Why are you helping me?”

 “Well, I need somewhere to lay low for a while until my name gets cleared. And I have experience with this sort of thing.”

His gaze fastens on her. “Sorry.”

Natasha smiles tightly. “Oh, it was a while ago.”

“No, I mean.  Sorry you have to deal with me.”

Natasha watches from her chair as Barnes wanders irritably around the room, trailing his hand over furniture, along the windowsill. “You shouldn’t have taken me out,” he says.

“You keep saying that.”

“Does Steve know?” he shoots at her.

“Of course.”

“Because I told him, this is better, that I stay under –”

“Barnes, listen to me,” she says, leaning forward. “You’re _safe_ here. We’re in the middle of the Wakandan jungle in a secret medical facility. No one is going to get to you here.”

“They got through INTERPOL,” he snarls. He doesn’t want to face her directly when he talks, or maybe he can’t.

“T’Challa would be very offended if he heard you comparing his security to INTERPOL’s.”

“I’m a weapon!” Barnes shouts, and shoves a chair over, wheeling to face her. Natasha remains carefully composed and expressionless. “Just waiting until someone pulls the trigger –”

“No one’s going to do that here.”

“You don’t know that.”

When she doesn’t respond, just keeps looking up at him, Barnes scowls and throws himself into the chair opposite her. “You can’t guarantee I won’t lose it again,” he says. “It would be better for everyone if I just –” and his mouth clamps shut.

 “If you just what?” snaps Natasha, glaring at him. “Finish that sentence, Barnes.”

He glowers down at his hand, but doesn’t say anything. “And then never wake you up?” demands Natasha. “Stay in cryo forever?” He winces. “Well guess what, Barnes, you don’t get to make that call. I didn’t, Bruce Banner doesn’t, and for all Steve tried he sure as hell didn’t get to either. _None_ of us get the easy way out, so suck it up and deal with it!”

For one horrible moment she thinks he might cry, but then it turns out the emotion twisting his face is anger. “You don’t know,” he hisses. “You don’t know what it’s like –”

“Oh, don’t I?” she says, and stares him down. “You might not know me but you know where I’m from, _зимний солдат_.”

Barnes goes very still, glaring back at her, until he has to drop his gaze. His one hand in his lap is clenched in a fist, and Natasha watches him relax it slowly, painfully, knuckle by knuckle. “Red Room?” he rasps eventually.

“ _Da._ ”

 

**Furnace**

Underneath her, T’Challa is sweaty, chest rising and falling. “Another round?” Natasha asks.

He grins, white teeth sharp, umber eyes crinkling at the corners. “Please.”

Natasha gets to her feet, holds a hand out to pull him to standing. The gym is empty except for them, the high windows throwing slanted rectangles of light on the polished wood floor. The mats and equipment are polished black leather. “Best two out of three?” she asks, tightening the athletic tape on her wrists. Her ponytail is starting to loosen, and she gives it a quick tug.

“Of course,” T’Challa says, smiling broadly. His damp t-shirt clings to the lines of his chest. “If you think you can’t handle more than that.”

Natasha smirks, facing off against him. “I just wanted to start off easy for you,” she says.

 

Natasha slips up behind him in the shower, hot water running down over her. “Hey, tiger,” she murmurs into his back, arms around his waist. He has a _great_ ass.

“Panther,” grunts T’Challa, looking over his shoulder at her. “Very different animals.”

“Mm.” His skin is hot and damp, she can smell the musky spiciness of his body wash, and his stomach muscles are firm under her hands. “Same difference.”

T’Challa’s hands fold over hers, slide them lower down his abdomen until they brush coarse hair. “I’m very offended by that.”

Natasha kisses down the line of his shoulder blade, shower water pooling in the corners of her mouth, collecting on her eyelashes. She is warm all over, anticipatory aching growing between her legs. “Oh, I’m _ever_ so sorry,” she murmurs. “How can I make it up to you?”

T’Challa moves her hand even lower, and Natasha smiles.

 

**Nine**

 “What did you do,” says Barnes, tangled hair shielding his face from Natasha. “To recover.”

She does not pause in examining his split and bloody knuckles for splinters of glass. “After I recovered, I went with Clint,” she says. “We stayed at his farm in Iowa for a while. No guns, no killing. Just letting all the shit that was buried come back up to the surface.”

Natasha presses a gauze pad to Barnes’ knuckles, knowing it will be healed in a few hours. So much of those early weeks at the farm have been reduced to sensations in her memory. Rough, gentle hands. A rougher, gentler voice. Warm sunshine. The smell of dying grass. Fireflies. The steely blade of a kitchen knife balanced between her fingers, waiting, her own blurry reflection in the polished metal. “It takes a while,” she says.

Barnes’ hand twitches in hers, crimson slowly seeping into the gauze. “I kinda figured that out,” he says.

 

**Benign**

In T’Challa’s bed, sprawled in the silk sheets, sweat cooling on her skin. T’Challa leans back against the pillows, lamplight gleaming faintly on his bare chest, claw necklace a black circle around his neck. Admiring the view, Natasha settles herself on her side. “Just to be clear,” T’Challa says. “I don’t want there to be any misunderstandings. I cannot offer any sort of… long-term commitment.”

“Darn,” murmurs Natasha, head propped against her hand. “And here I was hoping to be the next queen of Wakanda.”

T’Challa stiffens, looking at her nervously. “It was a joke,” murmurs Natasha, patting his arm. “Relax.”

“It is not a joke to me.”

“Does that happen a lot?”

He frowns up at the ceiling; Natasha watches him, appreciating the contrast of his brown skin against the white sheets, the way the muscles in his chest shift with his breathing. “Not so much,” he admits. “But I rarely allow myself to be in a position where it could.”

“Not with me, though.”

“No.” T’Challa looks at her again, faintly amused now. “I had a feeling it was not a factor for you.”

“Mm.” Natasha toys idly with a fold of the sheets. “Well, call me a heartless gold digger, but I’m not real interested in long-term commitment either.”

T’Challa hesitates, a new soft expression on his face. “I would not call you heartless,” he says, and leans over to kiss her, hand cupping the side of her face.

 

**Homecoming**

She starts out of sleep, alert and on-edge, hand immediately going to the gun under her pillow. There’s a man in her doorway, the dimmest of lights outlining his shaggy head and broad shoulders. Natasha tightens her grip on the gun, swallows hard, but does not point the weapon at him. “Barnes?” she whispers.

The man shudders, but otherwise does not move.

“ _Bucky,_ ” she says. “James Buchanan Barnes.” Sudden irrational fear strikes her, the man is gone and all that is left is an empty shell _…_

His head turns infinitesimally towards her, and then he vanishes from the doorway.

Throwing the covers off, Natasha hurries out of bed and out of her room, gun in hand. Barnes  is standing farther down the hallway, leaning against the wall, shoulders hunched. “Hey,” she says, softly.

Barnes swallows, a thick wet sound in the night. “ _Do you believe in ghosts_?” He’s speaking in Russian; every word strained, his voice grating even in a whisper.

“ _No_ ,” says Natasha, firmly. “ _Never have_.”

“ _Then what am I_?”

Tentatively, she puts a hand on his right arm; he flinches but doesn’t pull away. “ _A man_.”

“ _I died_ ,” he rasps. Barnes is staring in front of him, down the hallway. “ _I died and came back. I’m a ghost._ ”

“Hey,” says Natasha, and squeezes his forearm. “You feel that? You have a body. You’re not a ghost. _You’re not a ghost._ ”

Her eyes have adjusted; in the dim light she can see Barnes regarding her unhappily. “You’re a ghost, too,” he says. “You, and me, and Steve… all ghosts.”

“Even ghosts need to sleep.” Natasha hooks her hand in his elbow, gives him a little tug. Barnes obeys mechanically. “Come on.”

 

**One**

Warm heavy sunlight pours down on them, the faint scent of jasmine mingling with the richer scent of earth and jungle. Bucky leans his head back against Natasha’s bent knees, and she idly combs her fingers through his hair. From their perch on the head of the great black panther statue, the jungle is a rolling sea of emerald green around them. “When you said,” he asks, “that you didn’t get to ‘make that call’. When. When was that? When did that happen for you?”

Natasha pauses her fingers, tilting her head at him. “You can’t remember where we went on mission yesterday, but you remember that?”

On a good day he’d flip her off or say something sarcastic, but today his shoulders just tense up. “Answer the question.”

Swallowing hard, Natasha folds her hands in her lap. “When I was living with Clint, right after I got out,” she says. “It was… well, I wasn’t doing so hot, and there was one night where I was just sitting on the back porch with a gun in my hand, wondering what would be a bigger fuck you to those Red Room bastards, putting a bullet in my skull and destroying their weapon, or living out of spite.”

Lolling his head back further, Bucky looks up at her, eyes pale in the sunlight, the circles under them lavender. “Which did you decide?”

“Neither,” Natasha says. “Clint found me, made me give him the gun and promise I’d never think about that again.”

“Did you? Think about it again.”

Natasha’s smile is very small and very, very dry. “All the time.” Bucky’s eyes are fixed on her face, searching. “Not quite so much anymore.”  

 

**Freightcar**

“I know,” Bucky says softly. “You tried real hard, Nat. But I’m broken, and nothing’s gonna put me right again.”

Natasha takes his hand in both of hers, presses it to her lips, her cheek, trying to hide the tears that spring to her eyes. She shouldn’t be crying. This is stupid.

“Oh, shit,” says Bucky, suddenly alarmed. “Nat, don’t cry, okay? Don’t cry over me, honey, I’m not worth it.”

“Don’t say that,” she snaps, furious, eyes stinging. “I’m not crying.”

“Sure you’re not.” He smiles a little, though his eyes are sad, and brushes a tear off her cheek with his thumb. “And I’m not fucked in the head.”

Wrestling herself under control, Natasha leans forward and touches her forehead to Bucky’s. For a long moment they remain there, foreheads pressed together, knees bumping, hands laced in between them. Bucky’s hands tremble slightly in hers and she grips them tight, feeling calluses, faint scars. Each of his exhales are carefully controlled.

I’ve stayed here too long, Natasha realizes, and says so.

Bucky says nothing in response, but his grasp on her hands strengthens. “I know,” murmurs Natasha, and withdraws one hand to cup Bucky’s face, his stubble bristly against her palm. Tipping his face upwards, she leans up and kisses him on the forehead. His skin is cool under her lips, but as he sighs his breath on the inner skin of her wrist is warm.

 

Sunlight, bright and blinding, streams down over her and T’Challa. The helicopter behind her is sleek and black, waiting to take her to Birnin Zana, where a plane will fly her halfway across the world to New York. “I will miss you,” says T’Challa. “But I think we will see each other again.”

“Oh, I’m sure we will,” Natasha responds. “By an unlikely coincidence just as the fate of the world is in balance.”

Smiling, T’Challa leans forward and kisses her on the cheek. Sunlight glints off his hair as if off a diadem. “Until we meet again, Miss Romanov.”

“Your Majesty.” She looks back up at him, into eyes the deep golden-brown color of honey in the sunlight. While a faint pang of regret runs through her, underneath that is relief. All things must come to an end, and as far as ends go, this is a pretty good one. “Until we meet again.”

And she climbs into the helicopter, and does not look back.


End file.
